Prometheus, evolution, and the role of aliens in creating the human race

[Gawdzilla]

Originally Posted by Mudcat

Yes it is consistent except for all the elements which lead to the conclusion that it takes place on the same moon, not a different planet. Which makes it inconsistent with Ridley Scott's claim that it isn't the same place.

So, who is it again that knows more about this movie that Ridley Scott?

[Lowpro]

Originally Posted by Gawdzilla

So, who is it again that knows more about this movie that Ridley Scott?

Every. single. internet. critic.

[Gawdzilla]

Originally Posted by Lowpro

Every. single. internet. critic.

Well, there you go. Ridley should write the next movie on an internet forum.

[Mudcat]

Originally Posted by Gawdzilla

Well, there you go. Ridley should write the next movie on an internet forum.

It couldn't hurt. He would have to take great pains to strike a balance between listening to the fans and staying true to his vision but it can be done.

[Gawdzilla]

Originally Posted by Mudcat

It couldn't hurt. He would have to take great pains to strike a balance between listening to the fans and staying true to his vision but it can be done.

Maybe he wouldn't like them telling him what he actually meant by anything.

[Lowpro]

Actually Lindelhof was pretty much an internet critic and that's how he got to writing for Lost.

[Buckaroo]

Originally Posted by Mudcat

Because the derelict was an unexplored aspect of the original film that, as far as I know, was never explained even by the expanded lore.

Especially the question of "How did the company become aware of its existence on this far flung moon in this middle of nowhere system?" and if (like I said before) the moon that Prometheus takes place on is the same as the one on Alien then that answers the question.




Yes it is consistent except for all the elements which lead to the conclusion that it takes place on the same moon, not a different planet. Which makes it inconsistent with Ridley Scott's claim that it isn't the same place.

Sigh.

[Gawdzilla]

Originally Posted by Lowpro

Actually Lindelhof was pretty much an internet critic and that's how he got to writing for Lost.

And that worked out well, didn't it?

[Lowpro]

Got him a job with Ridley Scott

[Gawdzilla]

Originally Posted by Lowpro

Got him a job with Ridley Scott

Got a paycheck.

[Lowpro]

Then I daresay it worked out very well.

[MG1962]

Originally Posted by Gawdzilla

Maybe he wouldn't like them telling him what he actually meant by anything.

I remember an interview with Asimov when this fan got up and gave him a lecture about what Asimov really meant with the Foundation Books. Issac just smiled and nodded.

The fan concluded with the explanation.......authors dont always know what they mean

[Gawdzilla]

Originally Posted by MG1962

I remember an interview with Asimov when this fan got up and gave him a lecture about what Asimov really meant with the Foundation Books. Issac just smiled and nodded.

The fan concluded with the explanation.......authors dont always know what they mean

Small minds hyper-focused on trivial details can be come obsessed.

[Delvo]

The ads show evidence of ancient human civilizations and/or cave paintings indicating contact with aliens, which puts the aliens' presence here within the last few hundred thousand years or significantly less. Now I see y'all in here talking about the aliens having started all life on Earth, which means they were here more like four billion years ago. Is it supposed to be the same aliens in both times? If so, why were they here at both times?

And why did the writers want to insert that element? All we had before, I thought, was just that the aliens were natives of some other planet; what would a past connection with this one add to the story/movie?

[MG1962]

Originally Posted by Gawdzilla

Small minds hyper-focused on trivial details can be come obsessed.

As picky as I can be sometimes I don't think I ever descended to those levels

[Lowpro]

Originally Posted by Delvo

The ads show evidence of ancient human civilizations and/or cave paintings indicating contact with aliens, which puts the aliens' presence here within the last few hundred thousand years or significantly less. Now I see y'all in here talking about the aliens having started all life on Earth, which means they were here more like four billion years ago. Is it supposed to be the same aliens in both times? If so, why were they here at both times?

And why did the writers want to insert that element? All we had before, I thought, was just that the aliens were natives of some other planet; what would a past connection with this one add to the story/movie?

There's a larger thread on this issue here

Ridley led on to say that the aliens were more like gardeners, and perhaps didn't generate all life on Earth but maybe humans (left ambiguous) and the signs of these cosmic gardeners (the engineers) he says was to play on the human assumption that it's an invitation. Scott basically says the story is making fun of people who take such things as invitations, after all, they may not be invitations in a beneficial sense.

[Mudcat]

Originally Posted by Delvo

The ads show evidence of ancient human civilizations and/or cave paintings indicating contact with aliens, which puts the aliens' presence here within the last few hundred thousand years or significantly less. Now I see y'all in here talking about the aliens having started all life on Earth, which means they were here more like four billion years ago. Is it supposed to be the same aliens in both times? If so, why were they here at both times?

I really don't see how. That's too long for any race to reasonably be expected to survive.

Originally Posted by Delvo

And why did the writers want to insert that element? All we had before, I thought, was just that the aliens were natives of some other planet; what would a past connection with this one add to the story/movie?

Honestly I have no idea why the writers inserted that for Prometheus, it doesn't really fit the rest of the core Alien series.

[Gawdzilla]

Originally Posted by MG1962

As picky as I can be sometimes I don't think I ever descended to those levels

I was referring to the guy who was telling Asimov what Asimov really meant to say. Basement dwellers.

[Gawdzilla]

Originally Posted by Delvo

The ads show evidence of ancient human civilizations and/or cave paintings indicating contact with aliens, which puts the aliens' presence here within the last few hundred thousand years or significantly less. Now I see y'all in here talking about the aliens having started all life on Earth, which means they were here more like four billion years ago. Is it supposed to be the same aliens in both times? If so, why were they here at both times?

And why did the writers want to insert that element? All we had before, I thought, was just that the aliens were natives of some other planet; what would a past connection with this one add to the story/movie?

The planet in the first scenes is not Earth.

[MG1962]

Originally Posted by Gawdzilla

I was referring to the guy who was telling Asimov what Asimov really meant to say. Basement dwellers.

Oh I know...I was just muttering to myself

[Corsair 115]

Originally Posted by Buckaroo

The Nostromo landed on LV426, the Prometheus on LV223. Different planet. The similarities are due to the sloppiness of the screenwriting; Lindelof et al. decided they would loot the iconography of the original series, and it resulted in much confusion.

It may not be entirely the fault of the screenwriters alone. On many films the director has considerable input into the script. It also happens sometimes that the script is in the middle of revised drafts when the film starts shooting, and is then constantly rewritten during production.

I haven't seen Prometheus myself, but certainly some of it sounds like it was inspired by sequences originally intended for Alien but which were subsequently dropped due to budgetary constraints. (Originally, the alien eggs were not aboard the derelict ship. All the Nostromo crew finds is the dead space jockey. Later, the storm clears and they see a pyramid on the horizon. They go down into that. It looks to be some sort of temple, complete with strange hieroglyphics on the walls. And that's where the encounter the eggs.)

[Aepervius]

Originally Posted by MattusMaximus

This movie really had no boobs, unless you count the idiot getting killed by the snake thing because he kept ignoring all the obvious warning signs.

I was speaking in general, not about a specific movie.

[Buckaroo]

Originally Posted by Corsair 115

It may not be entirely the fault of the screenwriters alone. On many films the director has considerable input into the script. It also happens sometimes that the script is in the middle of revised drafts when the film starts shooting, and is then constantly rewritten during production.

I agree. It's pretty clear that the the movie started in one direction (that of a straight prequel) and changed in mid- or pre-production to what we have now, and so much of the original was clumsily left behind that it is confusing many viewers.

[Belz...]

Originally Posted by MG1962

Which was easily the most under developed sub plot in the film. I have heard the original scripts of the film were a lot more 'adult' this may have been an artifact of the rewrites they didn't want to let go off

I don't know. There's a lot of things the movie obviously leaves to our interpretation. This is one thing I picked up. I don't think it's that important that they make it obvious.

Quote:

My concern about the DNA is what 4.5 billion years of evolution are going to do to it. We went from frogs to self aware mammals in 400 million years, can you imagine the drift over 10 times that. And we have to accept the Engineers themselves have somehow stopped evolving in the same period of time

I don't remember if they actually name a time period for the scene. It could be that the Engineers periodically screw with Earth's evolution, or it could be that this scene alters the course of evolution, rather.

[Belz...]

Originally Posted by Mudcat

This becomes explainable when you consider the fact that the lifeboat was badly damaged and that Acheron is not a hospitable environment then it becomes no surprise that the message was badly garbled by the time Nostromo arrives to investigate.

Edited to add, the temple isn't where the ship came to rest.

It's not the same planet, not matter how hard you try. They even have different names. I don't know why you want it to be the same planet.

Originally Posted by Buckaroo

Why bend over backwards trying to make sense of it? The simplest explanation is that Lindelof is a lazy, sloppy writer, and there's plenty of evidence in the rest of the film that this is true. Naturally, it doesn't make sense; the writer wasn't paying attention, and created confusion as a result. Ridley Scott states it is a different planet, which is consistent with what we see in the film. My argument is valid.

How is the writer sloppy ?

[Belz...]

Originally Posted by Mudcat

Especially the question of "How did the company become aware of its existence on this far flung moon in this middle of nowhere system?"

They picked up a transmission from that planet. Watch the movie.

Quote:

Honestly I have no idea why the writers inserted that for Prometheus, it doesn't really fit the rest of the core Alien series.

Why does it have to fit something that isn't there ?

[Buckaroo]

Originally Posted by Belz...

How is the writer sloppy ?

Much of this thread is devoted to such a discussion.

[patchbunny]

Originally Posted by Gawdzilla

About as bad as "Alien", IMHO. And a bit more cartoonish than graphic. You might want to close your eyes when she gets in the med thingy.

I was laughing too hard at that scene. I don't think it was the emotional reaction they were counting upon.

[Gawdzilla]

Originally Posted by patchbunny

I was laughing too hard at that scene. I don't think it was the emotional reaction they were counting upon.

Major abdominal surgery is a serious thing. Why sometimes the incision actually bleeds.

[angrysoba]

I watched this film last night and I don't remember the last time a film has disappointed me so much. I was somewhat prepared for it because I knew that some people here on JREF had said they wished it had never been made but I was trying to avoid all information about it until I saw it.

I really liked the robot character, David. I think that Michael Fassbender did a great job portraying him but I expect the actor will wonder why he bothered when everything else in this film was so half-arsed and quite often comical.

Was anyone seriously putting forward some loony thesis about life on Earth coming from albino musclemen from Space? Was it all life or just human life?

Why are these scientists so incurious when they actually find extra-terrestrial life, any life, even the worms and the spider's webs would be amazing discoveries and yet the geologist is some kind of weird, lazy mercenary techno-hippy, the young, hunky (?) scientist would rather get boozed up after exploding an albino ogre head which seemed to move about and make funny faces when they plugged some metal thing into his neck, which is pretty good going since his corpse has been in a state of decomposition (or should have been) for 2000 years.

And then there was all those religious things that turned up in typically half-hearted fashion. And why on Earth was Guy Pearce's character secretly stowed aboard a spaceship? Why should we care that he was still alive? This reminded me of silly pointless twists such as those in Pitch Black when a boy turns out to be a girl. It does nothing at all for the plot so why should we care?

The more I think of it the more I dislike the film and that's a big shame because I was prepared to tolerate quite a lot.

[Mudcat]

I'll agree that Prometheus had som disappointing aspects, but before you get too critical remember these two words: Alien Resurection.

[angrysoba]

Originally Posted by Mudcat

I'll agree that Prometheus had som disappointing aspects, but before you get too critical remember these two words: Alien Resurection.

Yes, it is always easy to find worse films, but when I go to the cinema my yardstick for enjoying a movie is not "If this movie is better than The Phanom Menace, Kill Bill or Inglourious Besterds then I'm not complaining."

[Mudcat]

Originally Posted by angrysoba

Yes, it is always easy to find worse films, but when I go to the cinema my yardstick for enjoying a movie is not "If this movie is better than The Phanom Menace, Kill Bill or Inglourious Besterds then I'm not complaining."

Fair enough. I'm just pointing out that there were worse movies within the same universe, that you should cut it a little slack.

Personally, I rather enjoyed the movie.

It would have been much better without the overt religious aspects, but it also could have been much worse.

[lopeyschools]

This movie was really annoying for me personally. I was also totally confused over the perceived breaks from the Aliens move until I scoured the internet and found out it was on a different planet. They do show the planet number being different, but I was focused on the amazing 3D images and not on the not-so minor detail of the planet identification code.

The crew was made up of red-shirt retards who were supposed to be experts in their field. How did the geology expert who mapped the facility get lost? Why did they take off their helmets? Who brings a flamethrower on a space mission? Why is the planet so easy to find anyways? Why did they take off their helmets? Don't stellar constellations move over time? Wouldn't a cartesian coordinates have been the logical way an advanced alien species would map the galaxy? Why did they take off their helmets? Why did the highly advanced space engineer bring his fists to an alien fight? Why would you randomly play with a space engineer head? If engineer DNA is "identical" to human DNA, why are they 9 foot space monsters and not 5-6 foot tall brown/black/pink humans? And finally why did they take their helmets off?

That being said, I did think visually the movie was quite stunning and some of the scenes were good. Overall, a C- movie.

[Mudcat]

Originally Posted by lopeyschools

This movie was really annoying for me personally. I was also totally confused over the perceived breaks from the Aliens move until I scoured the internet and found out it was on a different planet. They do show the planet number being different, but I was focused on the amazing 3D images and not on the not-so minor detail of the planet identification code.

Planet identifications can and do change over time. In real life, several planets and other celestial bodies within our own solar system have gone through innumerable name and classification changes. So the planet in Prometheus is the one in Alien and Aliens, with a different name/classification.

Originally Posted by lopey

The crew was made up of red-shirt retards who were supposed to be experts in their field.

It's been a staple of the series that only one survivor makes it out alive (usually the leading female) so even before seeing the movie I knew everyone was going to die.

Originally Posted by lopey

How did the geology expert who mapped the facility get lost?

He personally didn't map the facility, he unleashed the drones that scanned the facility and transmitted the data to the ship which mapped the facility.

Originally Posted by lopey

Who brings a flamethrower on a space mission?

It's probably for sterilization of samples or to dispose of potentially hazardous materials (like an infected corpse, for example) if I had to hazard a guess.

Originally Posted by lopey

Why is the planet so easy to find anyways? Don't stellar constellations move over time?

They do move over time, but it would take millions upon millions of years for stellar drift to alter the position of the star system that drastically.

Originally Posted by lopey

If engineer DNA is "identical" to human DNA, why are they 9 foot space monsters and not 5-6 foot tall brown/black/pink humans?

They've genetically engineered themselves. I'd have thought that would have been extremely obvious considering the fact they all look exactly alike to each other.

[MG1962]

Originally Posted by Mudcat

Planet identifications can and do change over time. In real life, several planets and other celestial bodies within our own solar system have gone through innumerable name and classification changes. So the planet in Prometheus is the one in Alien and Aliens, with a different name/classification.

No it is not

Quote:

He personally didn't map the facility, he unleashed the drones that scanned the facility and transmitted the data to the ship which mapped the facility.

He did have the little wrist mounted display that worked fine when needed

Quote:

They do move over time, but it would take millions upon millions of years for stellar drift to alter the position of the star system that drastically.

No no no - finding a couple of dots on a wall will not get you anywhere in space

[Mudcat]

Originally Posted by MG1962

No it is not

Originally Posted by Uranus

Maskelyne asked Herschel to "do the astronomical world the faver [sic] to give a name to your planet, which is entirely your own, [and] which we are so much obliged to you for the discovery of." In response to Maskelyne's request, Herschel decided to name the object Georgium Sidus (George's Star), or the "Georgian Planet" in honour of his new patron, King George III. He explained this decision in a letter to Joseph Banks:[30]

In the fabulous ages of ancient times the appellations of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were given to the Planets, as being the names of their principal heroes and divinities. In the present more philosophical era it would hardly be allowable to have recourse to the same method and call it Juno, Pallas, Apollo or Minerva, for a name to our new heavenly body. The first consideration of any particular event, or remarkable incident, seems to be its chronology: if in any future age it should be asked, when this last-found Planet was discovered? It would be a very satisfactory answer to say, 'In the reign of King George the Third'.

William Herschel, discoverer of Uranus

Herschel's proposed name was not popular outside of Britain, and alternatives were soon proposed. Astronomer Jérôme Lalande proposed the planet be named Herschel in honour of its discoverer.[34] Swedish astronomer Erik Prosperin proposed the name Neptune which was supported by other astronomers who liked the idea to commemorate the victories of the British Royal Naval fleet in the course of the American Revolutionary War by calling the new planet even Neptune George III or Neptune Great Britain.[27] Bode opted for Uranus, the Latinized version of the Greek god of the sky, Ouranos. Bode argued that just as Saturn was the father of Jupiter, the new planet should be named after the father of Saturn.[31][35][36] In 1789, Bode's Royal Academy colleague Martin Klaproth named his newly discovered element "uranium" in support of Bode's choice.[37] Ultimately, Bode's suggestion became the most widely used, and became universal in 1850 when HM Nautical Almanac Office, the final holdout, switched from using Georgium Sidus to Uranus.

So I guess Uranus isn't the same planet as Georgium Sidus then?

Originally Posted by MG

He did have the little wrist mounted display that worked fine when needed

He struck me as the kind of man who wouldn't stop and ask for directions, personally.

Originally Posted by MG

No no no - finding a couple of dots on a wall will not get you anywhere in space

I get that, really I do. It's an unfortunate cliche of modern science fiction, however.

[MG1962]

Originally Posted by Mudcat

So I guess Uranus isn't the same planet as Georgium Sidus then?

But Uranus was never Neptune which is basically what you are asking

Quote:

He struck me as the kind of man who wouldn't stop and ask for directions, personally.

He used the gizmo to guide the other around during the initial investigation of the ruins

[lopeyschools]

Double post

[lopeyschools]

Originally Posted by Mudcat

Planet identifications can and do change over time. In real life, several planets and other celestial bodies within our own solar system have gone through innumerable name and classification changes. So the planet in Prometheus is the one in Alien and Aliens, with a different name/classification.

It's been a staple of the series that only one survivor makes it out alive (usually the leading female) so even before seeing the movie I knew everyone was going to die.

He personally didn't map the facility, he unleashed the drones that scanned the facility and transmitted the data to the ship which mapped the facility.

It's probably for sterilization of samples or to dispose of potentially hazardous materials (like an infected corpse, for example) if I had to hazard a guess.

They do move over time, but it would take millions upon millions of years for stellar drift to alter the position of the star system that drastically.

They've genetically engineered themselves. I'd have thought that would have been extremely obvious considering the fact they all look exactly alike to each other.

What evidence do you have that the planet was reclassified and is the same? (quotes from director or scriptwriter?)

Didn't he have the little arm map thing? A think the flamethrower was just a throwback to the marines flamethrow from aliens, which made sense because they were armed for bear. But they also had rifles/machine guns in abundent supply. Flamethrowers don't sterilize things so much as cook them.

The issue I have with the stellar constellion figure is more then just drift. They use a 2 dimensional image to find a 3 dimensional object! Space isn't like using a map. IMHO would have been much stronger evidence for the expedition in the first place if they have found a 7 figure cartesian coordinate like in Stargate.

If the engineers had genetically modified themselves (which seems pretty clear), why would their DNA be identical? Isn't that how genetic modication works?